People, does the title of this post sound like it is a little Fascist to you? That is the reason I included an image of the littlest Fascist I could find at the start of this thread, Joseph Goebbels Hitler's Propaganda Minister. So this thread has a small Fascist in it. :lau:However the truth is that this thread's title is government speak of one of Franklin Roosevelt's most cherished programs, his farm program.

Here is more on the saga of Fascism in America courtesy of the father of hybrid seed corn, FDR's "Farm Dictator," Vice President, Stalinist stooge, and 1948 Socialist presidential candidate Henry Wallace. A.K.A. Time Magazine's worst Vice President.

“…When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, his agriculture secretary, Henry Wallace, and others urged him to appoint a temporary “farm dictator.” Something like one of Obama's Czars. Congress quickly enacted legislation that vested vast power in the secretary of agriculture and his deputies. Four years later, Congress enacted the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, which authorized creation of marketing boards to issue orders to forcibly boost prices.

Marketing orders were based on the New Deal philosophy of “managed abundance — prosperity through universal monopoly and universal scarcity.” Americans quickly realized that it was not in the public interest to give private industry a federal license to conspire and gouge their customers. But such prerogatives have been retained by USDA marketing committees.”

Don’t any of you libs dare say that FDR or any of his New Deal programs and ideas are not Fascist. Every New Deal idea and program is as Fascist as the Goose Step. A circumstantial case can even be made that FDR maneuvered the USA into WWII in order to boost the price of raisins. And no, I didn't hear it on the grape vine. :lau:

“The Raisin Administrative Committee, one of the most powerful boards, can confiscate up to half of raisin farmers’ harvests with little or no compensation. The feds perpetually invoke the danger of surpluses to nullify raisin farmers’ property rights.

The committee fined Marvin Horne, a 67-year-old raisin farmer in Fresno, Calif., almost $700,000 after he refused to surrender control of 47 percent of his harvest. Mr. Horne, who labels the raisin regulations as “involuntary servitude,” fought the feds all the way to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments on the case in late March.The case seemed to shock the court’s liberals. Many, if not most, justices sounded clueless about how far USDA’s iron fist stretches.... ”

Color text was added by me, the poster for emphasis and to differentiate my words from the words of the Washington Times.

Yes I realize that the words issue orders sounds more like a Stalinist 5 year plan than what some of your views about Fascism are, but as I've said before, Marxist Socialism and FDR's Fascism are both command economies.

For what its worth. I hope that none of you trip over your modem cable and break something getting to your keyboard the next time someone equates Fascism with Socialism or visa verse. Remember, Fascism and Communism are different faces of the same nickel.

By the way, how's that "Managed abundance and prosperity through universal monopoly and scarcity" thingy working out for you folks when you pull up to the gas pump? Yea, I kind of though that you might throw your wireless mouse at the monitor.

Kingbee, has somebody hacked your account? You seemed to have lost PLL with 2013. :(

Do you remember hearing on Fox News that the USA was in a DEPRESSION back then? In a depression (or recession) the private sector puts the breaks of economic activity. FDR was trying to save your GrandDaddy KingBee’s butt and restart the economy in a government managed way….. because the private sector wasn’t doing it.

well, he failed. it is the general consensus that he extended the depression by taking money out of the private sector, parts of which were doing really well, and redistributing it to places HE thought it should go. sound familiar?at least we got some monuments and projects out of FDR.

Logged

.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called the government. They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

Kingbee, has somebody hacked your account? You seemed to have lost PLL with 2013. :(

Do you remember hearing on Fox News that the USA was in a DEPRESSION back then? In a depression (or recession) the private sector puts the breaks of economic activity...

Because the Government is funding start up companies from green energy to electric cars, at the cost of $11,000,000 for every permanent job created, it only follows then that Obama is the sector of the economy that is most in need of an over hall. One wind mill farm created 6 full time jobs and it only cost $168,000,000 to create them. This is a cool $28,000,000 for each and every full time job.

This is not investing in the future. It is pouring cash down a green rat hole. This is the same conduct that landed Government Motors in bankruptcy court and it will land the US there also. So when the time comes what do you recommend, stiffing Social Security and Medicare or Medicare and Social Security?

well you seem to have your own definition of fascist... which ain't such a bad thing it is just that I am not capable of looking at your own personal dictionary and at some point if you defined stuff just for your own consumption you may find no one can have any idea of what you are talking about.

I myself prefer Mussolini definition of fascism... and given that he gave that movement it first political traction in Europe seems like good reason in itself.

the farm program that came out of FDR administration was based on the writing of a Harvard professor by the name of Black (Harry I seem to recall). these idea were to keep the food supply constant and full. one often overlooks the fact that the agricultural sector was in a depression 10 years prior to the great depression (essentially since the end of WWI and in the proceeding 4 years agricultural had been way over capitalized... which is the exact nature of any bubble). if you understand basic economics the slope of the demand curve informs you pretty directly when it make good sense to limit supply in some manner. in the case of agricultural product this almost always means that limiting product boost individual producers bottom line. there is really little justification in producing any product in excess that is perishable.

the farm program that came out of FDR administration... were to keep the food supply constant and full. one often overlooks the fact that the agricultural sector was in a depression 10 years prior to the great depression (essentially since the end of WWI... if you understand basic economics the slope of the demand curve informs you pretty directly ...it make good sense to limit supply in some manner. in the case of agricultural product[ion] this almost always means... limiting product boost ...producers bottom line....

FDR also decreased the cost of food for industrial workers by forcing most farm families of his day into perpetual poverty. He accomplished this feat with marketing orders, crop allotments and artificially low floors under crop prices that often were less than world market prices. The only thing the farmer looked forward to every year was the same grinding poverty. Is it any wonder that there are only about 500,000 fulltime American farmers today? I am not going to argue the "something must be done" aspect of your post. Clearly something was needed. The problem is that all political ideas that become reality next step is reactionary resistance to change.

My definition of Fascism is a political ideology that venerates state power and or works to dramatically reinforce the power of the state at the cost of individual freedom. In a nut's shell this is what FDR's farm program did. Moreover every Fascist movement is preceded by a vanguard of true believers inspired by a charismatic personality who has either no morality or else a severely limited morality, while at the same time the leader possesses unlimited ambition. A good example is Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democrat Convention in Denver, but I digress.

I’ve posted the Nazi Party platform here before, and pointed out the numerous similar and even identical platform planks contained in Fascist, Liberal, Social Democrat, Socialist, and National Socialist political platforms, as well as in all Communist Party dogma. I am not responsible if people refuse to look at the evidence for themselves. But in the interest of fair play I wish to point out that the only Fascist aspect in most Conservative dogma is Nationalism.

However, let it be noted that the German Fascist party platform called for the breakup of large department stores like… well like the left wing nuts favorite whipping boy Wal-Mart, and redistribute these resources to small “middle class” mom and pop shops and stores. It also called for an end to “rent slavery“, and “interest slavery” and middle or upper class investments like stocks and bonds. The German Fascist also wanted to seize and redistribute un-used or excess farm land to the people who actually worked or who wanted to work the land, (your going to like this one Crouching Panther) this its sort of like the US did with Indian land. You can also think of it as the Lincoln Administration’s promise of, “40 acres and a mule.”

The German Fascist party instituted the first official May Day holiday for German workers. The German Fascist party advocated the seizure of excess profits as well as the seizure of all profits made by defense industries, arguing that defense industry profits are only possible because German solders died to create these profits and that made these profits immoral. Finally the German Fascist party unleashed an army of state bureaucrats to boss, regulate, spy on, and save German businesses from itself and to insure that they were acting sufficiently Fascist in a responsible and National Socialist sort of way. :)

Then there is the “Healthy Living or Environmental” aspect of German Fascism, personified today by the war on soda, on fat, alcohol, sugar, meat, big oil, all coal, any franking, HFCS, caffeine, CO2, tobacco, obesity, GMOs as well as the war FOR animal rights and organic agriculture. I could go on and on but I won’t. I think that the people who are paying attention get my drift. If you don’t, in short Fascism calls on its followers to close both their eyes and their minds and follow the party and its leader in blind and obedient lockstep, right off any cliff that gets in their way.